Biosurfactant production from marine hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria

BioSurfer is a biosurfactant product as well as a biosurfactant production scheme for ‘clean’ biosurfactant production, aiming for the growing biosurfactant market (oil spill response, enhanced oil recovery, detergents-personal hygiene industry). Big scale - low cost production of biosurfactant mixture from marine hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria. The final product is free from substrate impurities due to the ‘smart’ carbon source fed to the bacteria.

The art of Bioremediation

Bacteria in nature can degrade contamination such as hydrocarbons, heavy metals, through biological processes. During this process bacteria produce different kind of biopolymers (lipids, biosurfactants) that help them either to solubilize further the pollutants and increase their bioavailability, or to attach in surfaces and create biofilms. These polymers are very valuable bioproducts with high value to the industry. Biosurfactants are natural biological products and lately their market is growing remarkably.

In this project we use biodegradation in order to extract high value polymers from the process. Hydrocarbon degrading bacteria are set to produce rhamnolipids while using as "smart" carbon source a heavy crude oil by-product. 

Our vision

Our vision is to produce eco friendly, economically viable and high purity biological surfactants for use by the Oil Spill Response, Environmental Clean up, Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), Cosmetics, Pharmaceuticals, Toiletries & Household Cleaners industry.

Our story

bioSurfer is a PROJECT funded by The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF). The idea to use "smart food" as a non dissolving carbon source to the bacteria for biosurfactant production was born at the end of one of the many days in the lab. One of the problems in biosurfactant production is purity. The carbon source is mixed with the product so one needs to clean it. "Smart food" is a carbon source that does not dissolve in the aqueous phase so the product is extracted pure. 

Driven by our respect to the environment and focus in research and technological advancement, under the guidance of The Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Institute of Technology and the precious funding of SNF foundation we proceed to the development of the large scale production scheme of high purity rhamnolipids-biosurfactant product with the use of "smart" carbon source.

The project

Due to their diversity, biosurfactants are considered as a potential candidate for the environmental cleanup of pollutants. Therefore, a greater attention was paid on biosurfactants and identifying their potential applications.

Scientific Objective

1. Scale up the BS-rhamnolipid production method
2. Economic and versatile product will be produced by means of:

• Biosurfactant producing bacteria …
• … fed with heavy aromatic petroleum byproduct

3. Test product efficiency

• The crude oil degradation kinetics will be assessed in lab-scale microcosm experiments, with the use of the biosurfactant-product 

Challenges

Marketing Goal

• A ready-to-implement production scheme to be used by either existing surfactant vendors or a start-up company
• Higher production yield

Production Scheme

 Check our video as well

Biosurfactants Market

Biosurfactants Market size was estimated at 370.5 kilo tons as per the latest research report by Global Market Insights, Inc. 

Global biobased surfactants market size is set to be worth USD 2.69 billion by 2023. 

• Textiles
• Agricultural Chemicals
• Oilfield Chemicals
• Food Processing
• Industrial Cleaners
• Personal Care
• Household Detergents